I Finally Saw Clerks III

What did you expect from Kevin Smith, a man living on borrowed time?

Back in the summer of 2019, I set out to watch every Kevin Smith film leading up to the release of Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. It was a fantastic experience where I wrote about the movies as I watched them, watched no trailers ahead of seeing the film (leading to a shocker in Jersey Girl), and then ranked my favorite films, performances, and scenes.

Being the pop culture geek that I am, folks are surprised to learn that I only started watching Smith’s films 2019. Up until then, he was only a podcaster (and that only since 2012). So I’m watching all of these films as a guy in his early fifties rather than the younger person I was had I watched these movies in real time. As a result, they strike me differently (just look at my favorite Smith film), yet I suspect Clerks III will affect many of Smith’s fans in a poignant way.

Where We Left Off

At the end of Clerks II (2006), Dante (Brian O'Hallaran) and Randel (Jeff Anderson) had steered their lives full circle and purchased the Quick Stop convenience store, the setting of Clerks. Dante finally realized he loved Becky (Rosario Dawson) and opted to stay with her, especially since she is pregnant with his child. “Today is the first day of the rest of your life,” quipped Randal as the camera panned back, shifted to black and white, to the wonderful Soul Asylum song, “Misery.”

Little did we know how much misery was in store for our pair of clerks.

Spoilers from here on out.

Where We Pick Up

Just like the first two films, Dante opens the Quick Stop, complete with gum in the padlock. The warm feelings you get from seeing this family setting are immediately doused with water when you see an obituary on the counter: Becky, Dante’s fiancée from Clerks II, died. Not only that, but she died in 2006, the year the film was released. What the hell? What about the happy ending we got at the end of II?

Well, there was an ending to that movie, but life went on. And life can throw you curveballs, something Smith himself knows all too well. Back in 2018, after the first of two shows, Smith experienced a heart attack, a widow-maker, the kind of heart attack only 20% of people survive. Smith survived and changed his life, his diet, and his vision of life. He’s living on borrowed time, he says, something that Randal comes around to as well as he survives a similar heart attack.

Unlike Smith (who had an established body of work by 2018), Randal laments what he’s made of his life. “You saved my life,” he tells Dante. “I just wish I had a life worth saving.” These two friends—hetero life mates—love each other (in a total hetero way) and Randal gets the idea to make a movie about the life of a clerk at a convenience store. Naturally, he centers the movie on himself, and he uses all of his experiences (i.e., the events of Clerks and Clerks II) as grist for his mill. Then, just like Smith did in real life, the process of making a movie commences.

Making the Movie Within the Movie

There are lots of in-jokes and familiar nods and winks back to earlier Clerks films and other Smith movies during the middle part of Clerks III. I probably missed a few but I got the gist of them all. They’re all fun Easter eggs for long-time fans.

The Heart of the Story, Part 1: Dante and Becky

It’s one thing to see Becky’s obituary on the counter. It’s quite another when you see Dante heading through a graveyard and you know exactly what’s about to happen. But I guarantee you might not be prepared for the emotional reaction to the ‘talking to a tombstone’ scene, especially when Dante talks with Becky’s spirit. It is here we learn the true cause of Becky’s death: a drunk driver. Dante tells Becky he’s stuck, that he can’t go on in life, but she tries to redirect him. She tries to get him to understand that he’s still living, that he still has a chance to do anything he wants. It is simultaneously heartbreaking and inspirational, and Brian O’Hallaran does some great acting here, the kind of acting that comes from living with a character for nearly thirty years. Sure, it’s only been three movies, but O’Hallaran is pretty much synonymous with Dante for me and a lot of other people.

Dante and Becky have three total scenes together and you get banged over the head with one of Smith’s central themes: life throws you curve balls. You can let them knock you off course, but if you don’t reset, you will wallow in misery, despair, and melancholy. Up until the events of this movie, that’s where Dante’s been for sixteen years.

The Heart of the Story, Part 2: Dante and Randal

I wrote in my review of Clerks II about the surprise I felt when I saw how Smith broadened and deepened the relationship between Dante and Randal. This pair of decades-long friends truly love and care for each other. In this movie, you see it on Dante’s face when Randal is rushed to the hospital. You see it on Randal’s face later on in the movie, but that doesn’t mean they don’t bare their souls to each other. Randal had a fantastic scene in Clerks II, so it’s Dante’s turn in Clerks III.

Brian O’Hallaran and Jeff Anderson might not get a lot of attention in the acting community but they both knocked it out of the park in this movie. Randal turned his speech from Clerks on its head with his new outlook on life, but it’s Dante’s monologue in the Quick Stop that resonates. It is raw, laying bare the agony he’s endured in the years since Becky died. He had his happily ever after but it was ripped away. When Randal counters with “I almost died,” Dante retorts with “Some of us did die.” O’Hallaran delivers these lines as if he endured Dante’s life personally. This scene will find a place on the list of my all-time favorite Smith scenes, but I wasn’t expecting what happened next.

Dante falls victim to a heart attack.

Now, you might roll your eyes at that, but it was foreshadowed earlier in the film. And it compelled Randal to reexamine the type of movie he was making. He realized Dante, not Randal himself, who was the star of the film. He quickly re-cut the movie on his computer and showed it to a bedridden Dante. Then, you see all the old scenes from Clerks, but you also see a present-day Dante in a movie theater watching the movie, a wistful smile on his face. A hand reaches out and takes his. It’s Becky. And it’s then you realize that if Becky and Dante are holding hands, Dante himself is dying.

And he does. There are a lot of good last lines in movies, but for Dante, his final words are incredibly poignant. When Becky asks if he wants to stay and watch the rest of the movie, he replies with utter calmness and pride: “I trust the director.”

The Overturning of a Famous Quote

I’m not sure how many of the folks in my theater were crying when Dante died, but I sure was. Heck, my voice broke a couple of times when I later told my wife the events of the story. Yes, I cry at a lot of things, but these movies and these characters, even over just three years, have come to represent something. I think lots of fiftysomething folks, guys especially, find pieces of themselves in the lives of Dante and Randal.

But leave it to Kevin Smith to take one of his most famous quotes and change it. A running gag in Clerks was that Dante came into work on his day off. To just about everyone, he kept lamenting that “I’m not supposed to be here today.”

Now, in Clerks III, at Dante’s funeral, it’s Randal looking down at his friend’s coffin for the last time and he laments that he [Dante] isn’t even supposed to be here [at his own funeral] today.

That’s a fantastic piece of storytelling.

The Closing Voiceover

As the credits rolled to the deep baritone voice of John Gorka singing “I’m from New Jersey,” the music faded out and Smith returned. He talked about how immensely happy he was to have made this third clerks film and to the career he’s had. But he goes on to reveal a little bit of a scene that didn’t make the movie. It was a voiceover of a 90-year-old Randal Graves reflecting on his own life and all the movies he made after his celebrated debut, “Clerk.” “I always thought that jobs would have been great if it weren’t for the f*cking customers. But as it turns out, these jobs are great because of the f*cking customers.” Smith return and sums it all up. “He [Randal] means it, and so do I. Thank you to everybody who ever walked through that door of that store and made me think ‘Somebody ought to put this in a f*cking movie.’ Somebody did. Thank you.”

Thank you, Kevin Smith, for making movies like this. I may have been super late to the party, but I’m so glad I joined.

The Verdict

Clerks III is a good film with some outstanding moments that should resonate with its audience long after the credits fade to black. It still has some cringe-worthy moments, but none like the donkey stuff in Clerks II. But it is utterly fascinating to watch this film (actually all three Clerks films) about two characters at different stages of their lives by a filmmaker in those same stages. It’s not quick like Richard Linklater’s Boyhood (in which he filmed an actor over a decade actually growing up) but it’s in the same spirit.

The Ranking

Back in 2019, right before I actually watched Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, I ranked all the films. After Reboot, I ended up putting it at number 4. I have honestly only seen Reboot one time—during the tour when Kevin and Jay were on hand to take questions—so I’ll have to go back and watch it again. But Clerks III is going to be side-by-side with Reboot. Both deal with getting older and becoming more sentimental, but in different ways. I might give the edge to Clerks III for its ultimately inspirational theme that no matter how old you are, it's never too late to try something new.

In terms of scenes, the Dante and Randal fight and subsequent Dante monologue in the Quick Stop is one of the best written by Smith and acted by O'Hallaran and Anderson. Dante’s scene with Becky at her gravesite is also right up there. And the short moment at end, with Dante and Becky, also ranks as one of the best moments and lines in all of Smith’s films.

Daring to Dream with Marc Bernardin

A cool thing happened this week: a writer lived out a dream.

Marc Bernardin—writer, TV producer, journalist, co-host of the Fatman Beyond podcast with Kevin Smith—was a guest on the Late Night with Seth Meyers. Marc was there to talk about and promote his graphic novel, Adora and the Distance. As the father of an autistic daughter, he was encouraged to write about his experiences of raising an autistic child but, as Marc says in the interview, he was the least interesting person in the story.

So he created a version of a story in which there was a young woman of color who was on a quest and what she discovered about the world and herself at the end of the quest. Naturally, he edged toward the comic book format and bided his time. Finally, last year, the graphic novel was published on Comixology featuring the whimsical illustrations of Ariela Kristantina. Now, the book is in hard copy to buy at your local comic book store.

I’ve listened to Marc talk about this story for a long time so I was simply happy for him to get the book out into the world. But then he started to dream. What would it be like to go on a late night talk show and and talk about the book. Seth Meyers is a comic book fan so Marc set his sights on landing a spot on Seth’s show.

To make the dream possible, he encouraged a social media campaign, and, lo and behold, it worked. Marc was on the 19 April 2022 episode of Late Night. Here’s the link of the full interview.

An avid communicator through Twitter, Marc thanked his fans in a very Marc way.

 

In his deep dives into story and story structure on his podcast, I am often pausing long enough to transcribe things he said into my very own “Marc on Writing” file. Well, here’s another one to add to the list.

Five seemingly simple phrases that can take you far in life. But looks at the first: Don’t be afraid to dream the impossible dream. If you have a dream, go for it.

This brings me back to a quote of Goethe’s as cited in Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art which I reviewed last week: “I [Steven] have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it. Begin it now.”

Dreams come true. We witnessed one this week, and it was exhilarating. I grinned from ear to ear watching Marc on Seth’s show. I enjoyed seeing him live his dream. 

And I also turned my attention to my own. I’m dreaming my dreams and I’ve already begun to put them on the map of my life. Why is that important? Well, let’s let Marc Bernardin have the last word today.

I Finally Watched Masters of the Universe: Revelation

By the power of geekdom, how can folks not like Masters of the Universe: Revelation? I'm not sure, because it is an epic, summer blockbuster movie in five episodes with one massive cliffhanger.

My (Lack of) Background with MOTU

I have none. Zero. While showrunner, Kevin Smith, and I are both from Generation X, I'm two years older than he is. As such, back in 1983 when the original cartoon debuted, I had just aged out of the target audience for He-Man and his toy line. I was a Star Wars kid who owned a ton of those toys, but I was just not interested in MOTU. Even when Return of the Jedi landed in theaters, I didn't buy a single ROTJ toy. I had just graduated from middle school. I was heading into high school in the fall of 1983. I was, I suppose, growing up, and leaving toys behind.

That said, I knew a few things. I knew that the hero was He-Man, his lady friend was She-Ra (literally thought that was her name until I started watching Revelation), and his enemy was Skeletor, a dang cool-looking villain. And I knew the setting was Grayskull which, when you looked at the name and the visuals, I just assumed was where Skeletor lived. Other than that, I knew next to nothing about MOTU and never bothered to learn. I didn't even see the live-action movie with Dolph Lundgren. Even when He-Man made an appearance in DC Comics alongside Superman, I probably just shrugged and waited until the next issue. Needless to say, I barely gave MOTU any thought.

My Background with Kevin Smith

I had never seen any of Smith's films until 2019 when I saw all of them. For me, he was a podcaster, the host of Fat Man on Batman. I loved his deep dives into Batman, the comics, and all the things that excited him because they also thrilled me. I wrote a blog series back in 2019 where I finally watched and reviewed all his films (and my favorite often surprises people) leading up to Jay and Silent Bob Reboot's release. (Every post began with "I Finally" so I kept it here, too, even though MOTU: Revelation is brand-new.) I saw it at a special screening here in Houston with Smith and Jay Mewes in attendance. It was a great night.

Along the way, writer Marc Bernardin joined Smith as a cohost for Fat Man on Batman that morphed into what it is now: Fatman Beyond, a podcast where Kevin and Marc talk about geek news, take questions from the audience, and generally weigh in on all things geek. Over the years, however, the writing lessons of Marc and his in-depth commentary on movies and story, have become an education for anyone who cares to listen. He has a way of cutting through all the clutter and getting down to the crux of a story and why it ticks or doesn't. I started transcribing Marc's comments into a quote folder. While I am very much like Kevin when it comes to emotionally reacting to various things (audience reaction videos to the end of Avengers: Endgame get me every single time), I grew to love Marc's pronouncements on story. It's helped my own writing immensely.

Enter MOTU

Having 'caught up' with Smith's filmmaking, I was in the bag for anything he'd do next. I watched his TV episodes when he directed The Flash and Supergirl, but I wondered what his next big thing would be. When he and Marc announced that it would be an update to MOTU, I likely screwed up my face and uttered a "Why?" aloud for no one to hear. Seriously? He's gonna do an animated show about that toy line back in the 1980s that I didn't care about then or now? 

Yes he was. And the more he talked about it, the more I listened. It wasn't like I could fast-forward through one of the podcasts. Well, I could, but who knew how long it would take for notorious talker Smith to stop talking about MOTU and get on talking about Batman, Marvel movies, or anything else I knew about.

So I listened to everything. And what came through was Smith's boundless enthusiasm. But a key to this excitement for the franchise was not merely the thing he was hired to do. It was enthusiasm for the franchise itself. He loved MOTU and it came through in his voice. It would be something he genuinely wanted to see even if it he wasn't the showrunner. Over time and multiple podcasts, he wore me down. 

When I watched those trailers, I recognized what he and the entire creative team had done: update the visual look from the original Filmation version to a 21st Century sensibility. I started to get excited for this franchise I had never seen.  I knew that whenever MOTU: Revelation dropped, I would watch it. When he indicated Marc would write an episode, that was just icing on the cake. 

MOTU: Revelation Is Epic

Note: Spoilers abound from here on out.

Treating the show like a Saturday morning cartoon, I settled in to watch this new show this past weekend, but I made one crucial decision, the same decision I made when I watched Smith's films back in 2019: I did no pre-watch research. I merely watched the episodes, one after the other, reading no background or reviews. All my reactions to the show would be mine alone.

Thankfully for a newbie like me, the opening of Episode One gives an overview and immediately I realized my error about Castle Grayskull. It's not Skeletor's house. Yet another revelation was He-Man himself. I never realized that was a secret identity. He-Man's basically a super-hero, Shazam-like in that the scrawny Prince Adam bulks up to become the buff and powerful He-Man. I'm down for that.

Speaking of super-hero-type things, during that Episode One battle between Skeletor's forces and the heroes, Skeletor uses his magic to conjure various things, like a giant fist he swings at He-Man. My DC Comics-loving self took a note that said, “Oh, Skeletor’s like Green Lantern." Still good so far. Heck, all of the events of Episode One, which Smith wrote, was all it took for me to instantly be enthralled with the show. The animation was fantastic, the more adult tone was on point, and the action was exactly what I wanted: over-the-top and with stakes. Seriously, what's not to like?

The Music is More Than I Expected

But there was one aspect that I noted more than once in my note-taking: the music. As a guy who considers the soundtrack to a movie just as important as the movie itself, I loved it. When I listen to many of the soundtracks I own--be they from John Williams, James Horner, or others--I can "see" the movie in my mind as I hear the score.

Bear McCreary composed the music not for a mere cartoon. He took to heart the mantra the Mattel folks gave Smith during the creation of the show: make this franchise feel epic and Shakespearian. McCreary delivered. Not only did we get a huge, sweeping orchestral score, but he threw in metal-like guitars in many of the action sequences. That was awesome.

Yet McCreary didn't just compose bombastic music. He wrote the smaller, quieter parts equally as good. You know how seconds after a show ends, Netflix's app prompts you to either skip the credits and jump to the next episode or stay for the credits? I stayed for the credits just to hear McCreay's music. The end piece for Episode One, with its single French Horn mournfully playing after the titanic events that close that episode is a wonderful piece of music that reminded me a little of how Princess Leia's theme from Star Wars (1977) sounded.

The Quest Starts With Lots of Fun References

Naturally, after both He-Man and Skeletor "die" in Episode One, we have the what comes after. Teela (not She-Ra, thank you very much) and everyone else have moved on. So, too, has Eternia, this time, with technology. Science fiction geek that I am, I loved the tech in the next four episodes. And I especially appreciated how it was used in the show. Magic failed Eternia, so tech filled the void. Excellent take and historically accurate analogy (for our world). 

I appreciated how we start with Teela and then revisit every other character and what they've been doing in the years since the magic died. So, too, did I love the little references thrown in for the benefit of the audience, the “if you know, you'll know parts.” "Sorry about the mess," line from Teela was an obvious one, but I also dug the "Certain death? Most likely.“ line as a callback to Disney's The Emperor's New Groove. 

In a nod to the old shows, it was fun to see adventures from back in the day. I'm not sure these were actual episodes remade in the modern style or untold new adventures by our heroes, but I'm game to see them nonetheless. But I thoroughly enjoyed how Episode Three started with a cold open showing a past adventure and when He-Man uttered a cheesy line, the episode flipped back to Teela's new friend, Andra, openly questioning Teela's retelling. It enabled the writer of that episode to acknowledge the source material and the nature of 80s cartoons in general. That writer? Marc Bernardin.

Orko's Speech and Marc Bernardin’s Writing

By Episode Three, Teela has gathered a small team to search for the two halves of the Sword of Power, and that includes Skeletor's former sidekick Evil-Lyn. I only casually watched Game of Thrones but of the handful of episodes I watched, Lena Headey commanded the screen every time she stepped in front of the lens. Her casting as Evil-Lyn was marvelous, especially over the course of this episode as she begins to question all the bad things she did alongside Skeletor. Headey only gives a vocal performance, but you can hear all the cracks in her personal armor start to chip away as she shares times and the quest with the former heroes.

I knew from his commentary in the podcast that Bernardin was a gifted writer. It was his episode for which I most looked forward. And man did he deliver. He gave us humorous lines like "She's the only one with a Skeletor in her closet." Later, when our heroes have dispatched the Mer-Man, Andra says, "Something fishy about that guy." When all look to her, she says, "What? We were all thinking it." Yet for all the funny lines, he supplied some of the most heartfelt moments in all five of these episodes. Evil-Lyn's lament about her early days with Skeletor—"Instead of fulfilling my destiny, I spent a lifetime trying to fulfill his.”—is particularly moving.

But the most poignant lines of this episode were delivered by a character I recognized as being from MOTU but never knew his name: Orko. Griffin Newman voices the diminutive Trollan probably like the old episodes--in a squeaky voice--but still manages to convey tiredness and hopelessness as we first meet him. With the magic gone from Eternia, Orko is slowly dying, being kept alive by magic water delivered to him by Man-at-Arms. When Teela comes calling for Man-at-Arms, she finds Orko as well, and he implores her to take him with her. "I had the best times of my life with you," Orka says via Bernardin's words. "And that's the only thing that can help me right now. More life. But life is out there. So bring me on an adventure. Like you used to. Just this one last time. I won't let you down like the old days. I promise I'll be good." For a newbie like me, those few lines told me all I needed to know about this character. 

But then Orko delivers this speech to Audra:

"I spent years fighting alongside Eternia's greatest warriors. And now, I forget more than I remember. All my memories just blur together. So, if you're gonna lead the life of an adventurer, Andra, you might want to keep a journal. And write down everything you ever do, even the silly stuff you think is forgettable. Because when the adventures are over, that's all you're left with. Good friends and happy memories."

Bernardin is a middle-aged man. So, too, am I, Kevin Smith, and a large majority of the audience who grew up with MOTU. The die-hard fans probably have all the episodes of MOTU on DVD and have memorized many passages. I can do that with Star Wars, Star Trek, Indiana Jones, and others. We've got those collective memories seared into our brains via countless viewings. But how many of us can remember the nuances of childhood, what it was really like to be a youth in high school, the little moments when we met our spouses, or those first months after our children were born. Bernardin, through Orko, is reminding us of what's really important in life: experiences with family and friends.  Orko's sentiment is all the more powerful after he finally has his big moment and sacrifices himself to save his friends. 

The Big Cliffhanger

Speaking of sacrifices, Roboto also gave his life to reforge the Sword of Power. He's at peace with it, however, saying, "I was no mere machine. I was a miracle." Isn't all of life a miracle? Yes, it is. I know these episodes were written in 2019 and into 2020 and I can't help but consider how the pandemic influenced some of this writing. 

Our heroes finally find Prince Adam and discover he's living in heaven with other heroes of Eternia. It's a story beat you knew was coming but still gave you chills when it came to pass. So, too, was Adam's natural decision to return to Eternia and abandon heaven, knowing he could never return. It's what heroes do and, after all, he's He-Man. 

But just as Adam never truly died, neither did Skeletor. His soul, like the Horcruxes of Voldemort in Harry Potter, was stored in Evil-Lyn's wand, and he reemerges just in time to stab Adam as he's about to utter that famous line. In the final moments of Part I, it is Skeletor, voiced by Mark Hamill, who gets to utter the "By the power of Grayskull" line--probably a first for the character--and become the Master of the Universe.

And now, like at the end of Avengers: Infinity War, we have to wait for Part II to drop. Let's just hope it's not another year.

The Subtitle is the Roadmap for Those Who Care to See It

It was only after I watched and thoroughly enjoyed all five episodes that I jumped online (to ensure I got the details of this review correct) and learned about the vitriol being thrown at Smith. Granted, he's used to being criticized for his own movies, but it still surprised me. This wasn't a situation where one company bought another franchise and then made movies divorced from the original creator. Mattel sought out a kindred MOTU spirit and found it in Kevin Smith. He, in turn, recruited folks who loved the franchise and gave it their all, be it in words, music, animation, or voice. 

And Mattel wouldn't have greenlit the project if they disagreed with Smith's vision. They could have stopped it at any time if they didn't like the choices Smith and company were making. But Mattel didn't. They recognized that this is a show created with reverential love and appreciation for the source material. It is a continuation of the story not from the perspective of the corporate suits who made the original but fans who loved and grew up with MOTU and are now in positions of power to say yes to a project like this. 

It seems like much of the fan reaction focuses on He-Man and him not being in every minute of the story. They point to the original title—“He-Man and the Masters of the Universe”—as proof this new iteration is just plain wrong. But it's right there in the title: Masters of the Universe: Revelation. It's not just a He-Man story. It's a story about everyone else, too. Because why not? I'm guessing all those old shows either didn't delve into the characters much or, if they did, it was only He-Man and Skeletor. 

And just as the opening of Episode One revealed the staircase below Castle Grayskull (seemed like this was a new thing), so, too, will it be likely be revealed that He-Man isn't the only person capable of being a Master of the Universe. There were those other heroes now in heaven. And now there's Skeletor. There's a good chance we'll see someone else utter that famous line and have the power. I'm betting it'll be Teela. Heck, it could even be Evil-Lyn (because I think her time with the heroes has changed her). 

But the subtitle is probably forecasting the future. It will all be revealed when we have the entire story. Because let's be honest: we’ve seen only half the story. People are losing their minds with only half the information in their grasp. Seriously, folks. You can't judge Star Wars having only seen A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. Ditto for Star Trek (after Wrath of Khan) or Harry Potter (after any book/movie after Goblet of Fire) or Lord of the Rings (after The Two Towers). We don't know the entire story yet.

Fandom Should Grow and Evolve

Besides, what’s wrong with change? Was there an uproar when Frank Miller made Robin a girl in The Dark Knight Returns? How about when Lois Lane discovered Superman’s secret identity? Or when Battlestar Galactica’s Starbuck became female? Or Sherlock Holmes’s Watson followed suit? Or when a young woman welded Skywalker’s lightsaber in The Force Awakens? 

Oh, wait, yeah there was. What’s the common denominator? Female empowerment. Why is there a subset of fandom that thinks only white dudes can lead franchises? True, back in the day, they all did because it was white dudes making all the choices. But fandom has evolved to be more inclusive. Back in my day, we geeks sought out each other because most every other clique thought us weird. We collectively bonded over our shared geekdom. Now those geeks have grown up and are making shows like MOTU: Revelation not only for us veteran geeks but for the young ones as well. And those young ones are living in the 21st Century, a world that’s different from the ones we lived through. 

So, from a purely business standpoint, it makes sense to have Teela and Andra and Evil-Lyn be the stars and carry the heavy load because the fandom should be more inclusive. But just by including some doesn’t mean we’re excluding others. The tent is bigger now, more diverse, and with opinions to match. That is a great and healthy accomplishment if we allow it to be.

The Verdict

Back to the marvelous first half of this epic movie (for that’s what it is, just in ten 24-minute installments), this newbie MOTU watcher loved being introduced to the franchise. I was swept away by the scope of the story, the broadness of the music, the excellence of the voice actors, and the modern animation style. It is one of the best things I've seen in 2021 and will likely rank in my Top 5 for this year.

I may be late to the party, but this stuff is really cool and I can’t wait for Part II to drop. In the meantime, however, I think I'll find out where the original series is streaming and dive in.

Favorite Movies of 2019

Avengers: Endgame - My favorite of the year for all the action, the humor, the payoffs, the tears, and the feels. A remarkable end to a 21-movie series. Full review.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - The end of a 42-year journey with the Skywalker family. I truly enjoyed the film and appreciated all the emotional payoffs.

Hobbes and Shaw - Arguably the most entertaining movie of the summer and the year. This counts as my first Fast and Furious film. Loved this movie. Full review.

Knives Out - In terms of "I think that movie looks good" to the actual viewing of the film, this is a great film. Thoroughly enjoyed it, and it has sent me on a search for more whodunits (and inspired me to try and write one).

Spider-Man: Far From Home - Much like Chris Evans and Robert Downey, Jr. in their respective superhero roles, Tom Holland was born to play Peter Parker. And a dang good film that keeps reminding viewers the character is just a teenager.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse - An exhuberant movie full of fun, joy, and somber moments. My son who rarely likes all the superhero movies like I do really enjoyed this film.

Jumanji: The Next Level - Dawayne Johnson and Kevin Hart have great on-screen chemistry and I think I'd watch anything they're in. The fact that the ending serves up a nice message about aging is just icing on the cake.

Shazam - It only took something like eighty years for there to be big-screen adaptation of the original Captain Marvel, but the time was worth the wait. Everything you'd want from a Shazam movie is here, led by the incredibly charismatic Zachary Levi. Full review.

IT: Chapter Two - Both parts work well as a giant six-hour movie, but this second part brought the younger actors into the show more than I expected. The adult actors were all great, but this was my first time to see Bill Hader in a serious role. Wow. And that ending...

Older Movies I Saw in 2019

A Man Called Uve - My wife read the book, saw the movie, then watched it again as I saw it. Wonderful, wonderful film.

Jersey Girl - This was the year I decided to watch all of Kevin Smith's films in the lead-up to the new movie, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. I watched all the movies cold--that is, without any prep or even without watching the trailer. I had known how Smith and star Ben Affleck dog this film over the years, but it proved to be my favorite Smith film to date. A wonderful story about a single, widowed father coming to terms with what is most important in his life: his daughter. All the feels, all the tears both times I watched it. When does this movie get a critical re-examination for how good it really is? Full review

I Finally Watched Jay and Silent Bob Reboot

Way back in June 2019--only four months ago as I write this--I made a decision: I wanted to watch this movie when it was released. In order to fully appreciate Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, I would have to watch the previous twelve movies in the Kevin Smith filmography. I did and reviewed all the films. Last week, I ranked the existing twelve movies as I liked them, with a unique choice at the top. All of which serves as an introduction to the review of this, Smith's thirteenth film.

Getting to the Theater

I bought my ticket to Reboot back in July 2019. At the time, the Houston Astros baseball team was in the middle of its best season ever. Who would have dreamed that the evening of 30 October 2019 would coincide not only with the Houston premiere of Reboot but also be the day of Game 7 of the World Series. My choice was made in the heat of the summer. A lot of other folks made the same choice, but the number of Astros jerseys in the  crowd meant we were fans of both franchises.

The River Oaks theater is a landmark in Houston. Opened in 1939, it shows off that awesome art deco vibe when you walk in the door. It is small, but it doesn't feel cramped. There's a stage in the main theater and that's where Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes chatted up the audience in the minutes leading up to the show. They talked up Audible, the sponsor of the Reboot Roadshow, even showing a few fun ads the two of them created.

The Premise

If you've seen Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, then the premise of this movie will feel very similar. In that earlier film, Jay and Silent Bob learn a movie is being made featuring their likenesses, Chronic and Bluntman. Fearing the worst, in Strike Back, the pair travel across the country to put a stop to the film.

In Reboot, Jay and Silent Bob learn there is a rebooted movie being made about those same characters. And, having been legally stripped of acknowledging themselves as Jay and Silent Bob, they set out across the country to put a stop to the film.

Yes, it comes across as the same story, but Reboot has two distinct additions to it that Strike Back lacked. One was commentary on the world. For all intents and purposes, Jay and Bob have been ignorant of the world changing around them. Why else would they have to have the concept of a reboot explained to them. What this does is that Smith, via his characters, gets to put his own viewpoint out there. No, it isn't as sharp a take as, say, co-host Marc Benardin, but his dialogue on the current state of pop culture is played for laughs. And there are plenty of them, so much so that I actually missed some of the jokes.

The other thing Smith writes into this second odyssey is heart.

The Heart of the Story

Quite literally, Smith's life changed after his heart attack in early 2018. He changed the way he ate, lost weight, and gained a new appreciation for life. As evident from Jersey Girl and Chasing Amy, Smith had already written scripts in which he pulls at the emotions of his viewers.

But he hasn't done it in a movie like Reboot, one of his stoner comedies. In Reboot, one of the returning characters is Justice (Shannon Elizabeth) with whom Jay hooked up in Strike Back. Now, eighteen years later, when Jay and Bob land on Justice's doorstep, the pair learn Jay is a father. Millie (aka Millennium Falcon) as played by Harley Quinn Smith, is a fierce, independent young woman who has understandable anger issues at her departed and never known dad. Jay gave his word to Justice he would never reveal his paternity, but that doesn't mean there aren't moments of tenderness.

Having just seen Yoga Hosers the week before, I was happy to see Harley again in a movie. Frankly, I was hoping Lily-Rose Depp would make an appearance, but she didn't. Leave that for Moose Jaws. In interviews, Smith commented that he'd like to see if he could swing the pendulum from laughter to sadness in a single scene. He does, and Harley is one that sometimes has to pull it off. She does a fine job here.

Chasing Amy Sequel

The big news coming out the Reboot filming was Ben Affleck was back. For reasons I don't know, Smith and Affleck drifted apart. This past spring, they reconnected in time for Affleck to fly to New Orleans and participate in Reboot.

Given the opportunity, Smith did the only logical thing: he crafted a sequel to Chasing Amy. With Joey Lauren Adams along for the ride, Smith wrote and Ben delivered what will already be one of the all-time best Smith-penned monologues. For this fifty-year-old guy who only first saw the Smith films in 2019 and instantly gravitated to Jersey Girl, this sequence was perfect.

Like my comment from Cop Out where I mentioned it would be interesting to see Smith write a buddy cop movie himself, were he to draft a straight-up romantic comedy or family drama, I'm pretty certain he could nail it.

And yeah, the tears flowed here. Only time during the film, but they were so well earned. I'm already looking forward to the DVD release so I can re-watch these scenes. And all those extras that were left on the cutting room floor.

The Verdict 

Jay and Silent Bob Reboot is a solid, enjoyable film, made even more special by his and Jay's presence and a roomful of Smith fans. I was very happy to have had the experience.

Where does it rank in the Top 13 Kevin Smith films? Well, if you read my ranking from last week, you'll remember I had Strike Back in the fourth spot and I predicted Reboot would come in at number three or four. My third favorite film of his is Mallrats, after Jersey Girl and Chasing Amy. I've only seen Mallrats once, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. There's a lot of "old home week" with Reboot and that's the best thing about the film. Giving Mallrats its due, I'm going to slip Reboot in at Number 4, just ahead of Strike Back. Reboot had more heart than Strike Back and, even though I teared up in that one sequence, I'll give Mallrats the edge.

Where you do you rank Reboot?

Year of an Indie Writer: Week 44

Two things dominated this week: the new Kevin Smith film and the start of NaNoWriMo.

Oh, and a baseball series...Congrats, Steve.

Kevin Smith Live and In Person

If you read my personal blog, you'll know that in advance of the new Kevin Smith film, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, I watched the previous twelve Smith films. I reviewed each one and this week--on the evening of Game 7 no less--the new movie premiered in Houston. Now, I bought my ticket in July never dreaming it would conflict with anything as monumental as a Game 7. I fully expected to check the score once or twice during the film, but I didn't.

I waited until the credits.

It's a nice film, but not my favorite of Smith's films. I ranked all of Smith's films on Wednesday and ended up with...Jersey Girl. Read my reasons here.

Anyway, Smith and his buddy, Jason Mewes, introduced the movie and conducted a Q&A session afterward. It's a great way to see a movie, and it was the first time I've seen a Smith film with an audience full of Smith fans.

NaNoWriMo: A Tale of Two Writing Sessions

You've done it. I've done it. And I decided to do it again this year.

I haven't written a novel in a little bit. Other things have consumed my time--including me writing a new story for Paul Bishop's new anthology, BANDIT TERRITORY--and it was high time to start. I almost always start a new tale on the first day of the month. This month just turned out to be NaNoWriMo month. Why not?

Well, come 5:15 a.m. yesterday, I was starting to fret. I had the open scene in mind. I knew the main character. Heck, I even had a working title, a rare thing from.

When I opened my Chromebook yesterday morning and started chapter one, it was slow going. Frustratingly so. There have been opening days on novels in which I wrote over three thousand words. Yesterday morning's session, I managed 755.

Come lunch time, it was time for session two of the day. Taking a cue from Dean Wesley Smith, I re-read all that I had written that morning, tweaking and editing and adding bits of color along the way. Then, when I reached were I had stopped, I had a head of steam and kept going.

And kept going. The words flowed.

All the way up to the moment when the last line of chapter one clicked into place a few minutes before I wrote it. The grin that spread across my face was pretty big. I walked back to my day job desk floating, remembering exactly why writing is such an awesome thing. 2,063 words done.

I know every day won't be this way. I know every book won't be this way. But as a creative, those are the times to cherish.

Anyone else doing NaNoWriMo?

Top 10 Favorite Scenes of Kevin Smith Films

When I made my initial list of favorite scenes in Kevin Smith's film, I ended up with nineteen. Then, after seeing Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, I added a twentieth. 

Most of these scenes everyone already knows so I won't bother with context. I will add some to the one Reboot scene.

If you've read my post where I rank Smith's films, Jersey Girl topped the list followed closely by Chasing Amy. If you've read my list of favorite performances, you'll also note those two films dominate my list. I could probably make a Top 10 list with just these two films.

The Top 10

• Hockey rink scene where Alyssa explains her heartbreak in Chasing Amy 
• The yelling scene followed by "My City of Ruins" in Jersey Girl
• Ollie showing up to the play and Gertie's face in Jersey Girl
• Car scene and the aftermath in the rain where Holden reveals his true feelings in Chasing Amy
• Ollie's speech to baby Gertie in Jersey Girl 
• Why me? scene where Alyssa explains why she's with Holden in Chasing Amy 
• Dance sequence on the roof and Dante's realization he loves Becky in Clerks II
• Ralph Garman's impression scene in Yoga Hosers
• Randal's declaration of love for Dante in Clerks II
• The Chasing Amy sequel in Jay and Silent Bob Reboot

One of the best things about Reboot was, in Smith's words from the Houston show, it's like a high school reunion. So as fun as it was to see all the old actors and characters, there was one scene that went farther. When Ben Affleck agreed to join the movie shoot, Smith crafted an eight-page sequel to Chasing Amy.

Pitch perfect.

Ben's speech in Reboot not only completed Holden's character arc, but kind of also spoke to what took Ollie (his character in Jersey Girl) so long to realize. When you become a parent, your world changes.

If Silent Bob's speech in Chasing Amy is a goldmine of life advice about love and relationships, then Holden's speech about parenthood is the logical next step. And, it was the one time in watching Reboot where the tears flowed.

Honorable Mention (AKA The Other 10)

• Silent Bob's speech in Chasing Amy
• Stan Lee's speech in Mallrats
• Jay and Silent Bob's entrance in Mallrats
• Zack and Miri's love scene in Zack and Miri Make a Porno
• Michael Parks telling stories in Tusk
• Phone call in the police station in Cop Out - I know Smith didn't write this, but it's a funny bit
• Sean William Scott repeating things in Cop Out - Ditto here, too.
• The ending of Dogma with God
• Brainstorming the porno movie in Zack and Miri
• What are your intentions? scenes in Jersey Girl

Favorite Performances in Kevin Smith Films

After I ranked all twelve of Kevin Smith's films yesterday, here are my favorite performances. Tune in tomorrow for my favorite scenes, including at least one from Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.

Joey Lauren Adams in Chasing Amy - If I had to pick a single performance over all of Kevin Smith's films that was my favorite, it would be Adams. She knocked it out of the park both in the small scenes and especially in emotionally anguishing scenes. She could open the character's heart so warmly when she answers the "Why me?" question, and then lets you feel the utter betrayal outside the hockey rink. Wonderful.

Ben Affleck in Jersey Girl - Going into this film cold--I didn't watch the trailer ahead of time--I was able to experience Gertie's death at the same time as Ollie. Now, unlike him, my Dad Switch turned on the day my boy was born. It was fascinating to watch Ollie come around to know what is most important. His monologue to his baby was magnificent. And his chemistry with his co-star is palpable.

Raquel Castro in Jersey Girl - When you have child actors, often a movie rests on their shoulders. Think E.T. or The Sixth Sense. With Jersey Girl, Castro is the titular character. She is fantastic. You can easily believe she is Affleck's daughter. Her anguish when she hears Ollie say he wants his old life back is only tempered by the scene in which she forgives him. And that look she gives her dad when he shows up on stage to sing with her: Priceless! Her last hug with Affleck when she swipes her hand over his face: equally as priceless.

Jason Lee in Chasing Amy - Lee as Brodie in Mallrats is marvelously smirking, but Lee as Banky in Chasing Amy is something else. Snarky as all get out, Lee brings depth to the performance, especially as the film progresses. That last scene when he mimes to Affleck's Holden is great. His "Sure" response to Holden's stunningly stupid proposal is just as good as his "That, my friend, was a shared moment."

George Carlin in Jersey Girl - My knowledge of Carlin almost begins and ends with Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. I know, I know, but I just never got around to watching his shows. But him in this role as a crusty old grandfather who knows what's best for his son is really well done, especially on my second viewing. The little moments here and there show there's a lot of depth in him. Loved him in this role.

Michael Parks in Tusk - In both Tusk and Red State, Parks gives brilliant performances, but he shines in Tusk. His way of telling stories to Justin Long's character is mesmerizing. He makes you believe Howard Howe is truly insane in the most underrated way: the subtle approach.

Elizabeth Banks in Zack and Miri Make a Porno - In a romcom as only Kevin Smith could write--with porn--this movie wasn't my favorite. But Banks is this film's shining star. Her eyes open up Miri in such an honest way. The love-making scene is really well done, as is the ending when Zack finally gets his head out of his butt and realizes the truth.

Harley Quinn Smith and Lily-Rose Depp in Yoga Hosers - This is a film you watch for the performances more so than the story itself. The story is over-the-top, but the performances of these two actresses are stellar. I will happily watch anything these two are in, even if it is Moose Jaws.

NOTE: I made a point with this list to select one actor per role, but I really enjoyed Jason Lee in Mallrats as the pseudo narrator and Ben Affleck in Chasing Amy. Affleck's scene in the car when he lays out his feelings is his best of the film.

Honorable Mentions: [for a single scene]

Jeff Anderson in Clerks II - I'll be honest: for most of Clerks II, Randal annoyed the crap out of me. His merciless harassing of Elias, his ordering of Dante's going-away gift, and his general poor outlook on every human frankly irritated the crap out of me. But his raw declaration of love to Dante in the jail cell is so, so good. One of the best moments of the entire Smith filmography.

Brian O'Halloran in Clerks II - O'Halloran's Dante is constantly rolling his eyes at Randal's comments, but he's also a man stuck in a bad position. "She'll eventually get me" is his acceptance of his lot in life. While that's heartbreaking, the scene on the roof when Becky teaches him to dance is fantastic. When Dante sees Becky in a brand-new light, he realizes he loves her. O'Halloran does it in a single scene with no words, but it all there on his face. Best Dante scene in all the movies.

Ralph Garman in Yoga Hosers - I have listened to Garman do his impressions on his Hollywood Babble On podcasts for years. I listen to him every weekday on The Ralph Report. But I have never *seen* him do his impressions. This was a boffo performance that had me grinning from ear to ear, especially considering he spoke not a word in Red State and only a single scene in Tusk.

Jason Mewes in Mallrats - Of all the entrances Jay and Silent Bob did in the movies, this was by far my favorite. Jay's little dance makes me laugh every time. His constant bickering with Bob to stop trying to use his Jedi powers is a funny through line. And his simple "What else are we gonna do?" line, delivered in the most natural "Duh" voice is perfect.

Kevin Smith in Chasing Amy - Joey Lauren Adams aside, this one scene in Chasing Amy when Smith as Silent Bob spills this juicy nugget of truth to himself and all the folks who watch this film is golden. And he didn't deliver the lines with any sort of bravado. Bob was a defeated man here, a man living with the knowledge he let his Amy get away and now he's stuck with Jay. Just hearing him dish this tale you know Smith likely dealt with something similar. That he wrote these lines in the year or two before he met his wife probably helped him to appreciate her when they finally me.

I Finally Ranked All of Kevin Smith's Films

Now that I've caught up with most of the world and watched all of Kevin Smith's films to date, I get to see the latest one tonight. I'll be attending the Jay and Silent Bob Reboot roadshow as it lands here in Houston at the River Oaks Theater. It is for an event like this that I started watching all the Smith films after missing them all for the past twenty-five years. 

Tune in next week for my review of the new flick [and read to the end on my prediction of where Reboot lands], but in lieu of a review today, I thought I'd rank the existing 12 films as I enjoyed them. 

When I started thinking about it, three immediately jumped to the front. They all jockeyed for position, but even as I write this, I'm not sure which one will come out on top. My fourth pick is already set. The last spot is also set.

Remember: I'm a fifty-year-old dude watching these films for the first time starting in the summer of 2019. I didn't watch these films in real time for the past twenty-five years, growing and aging with the films and the director and the fan base. For each film, I did no initial research, which included not watching any trailers. I took each film as it was presented on screen.

Links to the original reviews are in each title. Don't forget the Introduction to learn where I started.

So here we go, in reverse order.

12. Red State - Despite the brilliant opening scene in which Michael Parks shows up on screen, Red State is easily the film I dislike the most. Easily bottom of my list. No contest. I appreciated the indie spirit with which it was made and distributed, but that's about it.

11. Tusk - Smith got his indie mojo back with this film and it shows. Loved seeing it, especially after the previous four films didn't really have it. Michael Parks could read the phone book and I'd buy the audio, the DVD, and a ticket, so him telling stories to Justin Long's Wallace was mesmerizing. But despite those truly wonderful moments, this film didn't strike me where I enjoy being.

10. Dogma - So, I'm writing this list about four months after I watched Dogma which, until Red State, was the film I disliked the most. But unlike Red State, Dogma is kind of a blank. Other than the ending and the presence of Alan Rickman delivering Smith dialogue like only Rickman can, I can barely recall much of this movie. It's not active dislike. It's more indifference. A shrug.

9. Zack and Miri Make a Porno - It's a romcom as only Smith can do it. I enjoy romcoms. Always have. There's some stuff in here I didn't like, but two scenes--Zack and Miri's lovemaking and the brainstorming--elevate this film. I liked the ending, but Zack was too dense and dumb to have said those things earlier in the film.

8. Yoga Hosers -  I asserted in the review that sometimes you watch a film for the performances no matter the plot. That's the case here. Harley Quinn Smith and Lily-Rose Depp are great in this film and I'd watch anything they're in. Johnny Depp seems to be having a blast being able to just be an actor. And Ralph Garman gets to show off his impressive impressions. A highlight of the entire run of Smith films for sure.

7. Cop Out - When I was watching the movie and making notes, I wrote this was Lethal Weapon lite, a throwback to the kinds of movies made in the 1980s. I loved those movies so I generally enjoyed this film even if I still pine for a buddy cop movie written by Smith himself.

6. Clerks - In my review, I posed the question if you could be too old to see Clerks for the first time. Maybe. What I saw in this movie as I saw it for the first time in 2019--fun talk about pop culture among friends--is the world I've always known. Now, it just seems like all those folks are now in positions of power and influence so we're getting umteen reboots to fuel our nostalgia. Nothing wrong with that at all, but it makes the impact of the original 1994 film less when you see it in 2019.

5. Clerks II - Why does this film rank higher than the original? Two scenes. As I'm writing this list, it's been nearly four months since I watched Clerks. Other than a couple of things, I can't remember much of the movie. With Clerks II, not only do I remember a scene I dislike (inter-species erotica), but I also remember two scenes quite well: the utterly charming rooftop dance sequence coupled with Dante's realization he loves Becky and Randal's raw and emotional declaration of love to Dante. Both swelled my heart and elevate this film.

4. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back - In the review, I compared this film to the Muppet Movie. Still holds true. It's wacky, irreverent, and chock full of every joke Smith could conceive. I suspect Reboot will be just like this, but with more heart.

3. Mallrats - So much to love in this film. A lot like Clerks, but with more heart. The antics of Jay and Silent Bob are akin to Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (read the review for context). The intro to Jay and Bob on screen is my favorite of all of them. It's a warmhearted story told by a twentysomething for other twentysomethings...and everyone else.  Jason Lee is perfect in this film. Loved the ending. And it's wildly hilarious.

[Going into ranking the Top 2, I re-watched both Chasing Amy and Jersey Girl. My love for both of them rose, but only one can came out on top.]

2. Chasing Amy - I think for many of you, this is Smith's best film. And, for me, it's nearly a tie at the top. But, as you'll read in a minute, this fifty-year-old dad can relate much more to the heartaches of being a dad versus the highs and lows of dating in your twenties. Even when I was in my twenties, my dating life wasn't nearly as painful as what Holden and Banky and Alyssa endure.

• Still, this movie stars Joey Lauren Adams who, without question, gave the best performance in any Smith movie. When I think of favorite scenes in Smith's films, she's in three right off the bat. 
• Jason Lee's Banky is wonderful (and a nice counterpoint to his turn in Mallrats) and Affleck has some great moments, too. 
• A truly great film that would be at the top if not for the heartstrings only a dad can appreciate.

1. Jersey Girl - When I re-watched this film, I had my original notes beside me. In a different color ink, I made additional notes of things I saw the second time that affected me more.

• George Carlin's role stood out even more so than the first. A great, yet gruff dad.
• When Ollie and Gertie (Lopez) are told they're pregnant (and me remembering that moment in my own life). 
• Ben's speech to baby Gertie, saying "I'm just your dad." 
• The introduction of Raquel Castro when you see her face and Ollie says "You're chariot awaits." 
• The realization that Ollie did what any parent would do when faced with raising a child: anything, including sweeping streets and sewer work. 
• Liv Tyler as Mya is perfect casting as the slightly dorky love interest who almost trips over her own feet and words at times. 
• The general chemistry between Affleck, Castro, and Carlin. 
• The dual "What are your intentions?" scenes
• The scene when Ollie and Gertie yell at each other about moving back to the city. Gut punch.
• The "Hi, Daddy," line Castro says when Ollie comes to apologize. 
• Gertie's line about if her mom loved the city "Then I guess I'll love it, too." when you realize the child changed for the dad. 
• The realization that the child forgave the parent. Truly humbling. 
• "I'm just a guy who'd rather play in the dirt with his kid." One of the best lines of dialogue about being a parent. All the feels.
• The utter perfection when Gertie sees Ollie on stage and realizes he made it in time. Tears both times I saw the movie. Ever more feels.
• Gertie touching her dad's face during that last dance. All the feels again.

In my review, I asked in what world was this film a bomb? Well, I finally watched the behind-the-scenes bit on the DVD and Kevin Smith himself has an answer: "You have to be a totally jaded prick not to like this movie."

I am far from a jaded prick. I am a man, a dad, who wears his heart and emotions on his sleeve. I tear up when I see those videos of soldiers/dads returning and surprising their kids. I tear up when I read about pets and animals. I tear up when I see stories about everyday folks helping out each other.

And I teared up multiple times when I saw this film the first time. It hit me square in the middle of my heart and I love it. I'm ready for it to have that second life some films get when time has passed and a re-evaluation occurs.

-----

So there you go: My ranking of all twelve of Kevin Smith's films. It's been a fantastic viewing experience, and I'm looking forward to seeing Jay and Silent Bob Reboot tonight in Houston.

In case you can't tell, I'm a fan of films that have heart. In all of his talk on various podcasts about Reboot, Smith comes out and says this new film has lots of heart. He knows he can make us laugh. Now, he's going to see how well he makes us cry. I'm all in for that. So I'm heading to the River Oaks Theater tonight expecting multiple scenes that'll pull those tears right out of my eyes.

Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Prediction

My prediction of where Reboot will land on the Kevin Smith Films Ranked List? Probably #3 or #4. Reboot will likely be more heartwarming than Strike Back, so it'll be a battle between Reboot and Mallrats to determine the blend of stoner humor and heartwarming emotion. I can't wait to find out.

Tune in tomorrow for a list of my favorite performances in Smith's films. [I already gave away the top spot.]

Friday I'll list my favorite scenes.

Next week, return for my write-up of Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.

Year of an Indie Writer: Week 43

Who's doing NaNoWriMo?

This coming Friday is 1 November, the month associated with National Novel Writing Month. Thirty days, 50,000 words, no looking back, just charge ahead.

I'm gonna do it. Pretty sure. I wrote in this column a few weeks ago about writing short stories to get out of the slump. That's fine, but I think I'm better at writing novels. Longer works, because even my short stories are rather long. The short story I submitted to an upcoming anthology came out to nearly 8,000 words. Is that long?

So I'm looking at starting a novel this Friday. I've done NaNoWriMO before back in 2015. I've done a "NaNoWriMo" in multiple other months. Averaging 1,667 words per day can seem daunting if you've never done it before, but when you get in a groove, the words fly. My plan is to average around 800 words per writing session: one at 4:45-6:00 am and another at lunch time. That's for weekdays. Weekends should likley be early morning sessions each day.

The biggest decision between now and Halloween night will be to decide which tale to tell. I've got three in the hopper: one modern mystery, one modern slice of life story, and one...thriller. I think. I've come up with the idea for the story--based on a song, no less!--but I'm trying to figure out its style. Good thing about not planning ahead: the style will reveal itself during the writing process.

Looking forward to having some fun.

Truth Told

Do Some Damage was founded in part to discuss the writing process. All of the writers who have posted all have our own takes on the subject of writing and creativity. It's one thing to hear how we writers who are not as famous as other folks say what we have to say, but its something quite different when a person as famous as Christopher McQuarrie weighs in.

In a 24-part Twitter thread, McQuarrie speaks truth upon truth upon truth. Most of it is difficult to read, especially if you are betting on the 'lottery' [his term]. I zeroed in on Tweet #8 because it echoed what I've always called "Control the Controllables":

8. The secret to success is doing what you love, whether or not you’re being paid. The secret to a rewarding career in film (and many other fields) is focusing entirely on execution and not on result.

Read the whole thing. Print it and tape it to your writing desk.

The Great Kevin Smith Watch

In case you missed some of my other posts, I made a decision this summer: watch all twelve of Kevin Smith's films leading up to the thirteenth coming out this week here in Houston. This past Wednesday, I posted my twelfth review for Yoga Hosers. This coming Wednesday, I'll be seeing the new film, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, at a special event here in H-Town. Smith and his friend Jason Mewes are traveling with the new movie in which they show the film to the audience and then do a question and answer session.

I'll be posting my review of the new film on 6 November, but as a placeholder, this week I'll be posting my ranking of Smith's films. I instantly knew my top three, the fourth one, and the one in dead last. What I didn't know was what film would get the top spot. I sat with a piece of paper and started putting the movies in my own order. When I finally realized which film I liked best, I looked forward to publishing the list. It's unconventional, but easy to understand if you know me and what I like.

Any ideas?

TV Show of the Week: Evil

Two Thursdays ago, my wife suggested we watch episode four of the new TV show Evil on CBS. I had seen the previews all summer long while watching Elementary. Initially it looked like something not in my wheelhouse, but I gave episode four a try.

Intrigued. Very intrigued.

Then I watched episode one. Hooked. All in.

I've now seen episodes five and two. Just have to see three and I'll be caught up.

Anyone else watching this show?

That covers it for the week. As I write this, the Houston Astros are up 4-1 in the bottom of the seventh. Hopefully when you read this tomorrow, the team from H-Town will have a World Series win in 2019.

I Finally Watched Yoga Hosers

Introduction
Clerks
Mallrats
Chasing Amy
Dogma
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
Jersey Girl
Clerks II
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
Cop Out
Red State
Tusk

Sometimes you watch a movie for the plot despite the actors. Sometimes you watch a movie for the actors notwithstanding the plot. Then there are those films in which both sides come together and you get something magnificent.

Anyone can come up with a short list of movies that fall in these three categories. Of the dozen films Kevin Smith has made to date, you can put them all into these categories. Where would you put Yoga Hosers, the 2016 movie starring Harley Quinn Smith (Smith's daughter) and Lily-Rose Depp (Johnny Depp's daughter)?

The Premise

Lily-Rose (Colleen) and Harley (also Colleen) reprise their roles from 2014's Tusk as clerks in the Canadian convenience store called Eh-2-Zed. They're sophomores in high school who spend their lives on their phones, in the company of Yogi Bayer practicing yoga, and doing the same things Dante and Randal did in the 1994 movie, Clerks: passing through life with a jaded eye towards everything other than their phones, yoga, singing in a rock band, and each other.

Imagine their great delight when a pair of seniors invites them to a party. Imagine their chagrin when Lily-Rose's dad (owner of the store) suddenly leaves town with his younger wife (store manager), leaving the Colleens with only one choice: work at the store but invite the boys to bring the party to the store.

Except the boys want to kill them for...reasons. Actually, they're Satanists. But the evil lads are killed by...wait for it...sentient Nazi bratwursts, nicknamed Bratzis.

I shit you not.

The Acting

Setting plot aside, the two leads have great chemistry together. I think I remember Smith on a podcast talking about the two girls are actual friends in real life. They play and riff off each other so well that even if it isn't true, it should be. Maybe it is now that they've done two movies together.

I really enjoyed seeing the updated version of clerks circa 2016 vs. 1994. Way less pop culture, but way more indifference. Where Randal (in Clerks) all but hated lots of humanity for the things we do, the Colleens just don't care. They'd much rather do their own thing in their own bubble. Consciously or not, Smith created two pairs of characters, nearly a quarter century apart, that encapsulate a certain sector of culture. It's both weird and troubling. We as a society went from active dislike to apathy. Damn.

Be that as it may, I thoroughly enjoyed watching both Harley and Lily-Rose on screen. I know there is a third movie coming--Moose Jaws--and I'll be watching that purely to see these two actresses perform together. A highlight of the movie.

Johnny Depp's in this movie, too. He reprises his role as Guy LaPointe from Tusk. He is the only one who believes the story the Colleens' spin about evil Bratzis. Given how much fun Depp had in Tusk, he seems to have more fun here. It must have been fun for him to hide behind the prosthetics and makeup and just make a silly movie without the world watching.

Stan Lee makes a cameo! And Kevin Conroy, with a young lad named Robin! But there is one actor I've been looking forward to seeing most of all.

Mr. Ralph Freaking Garman

Finally, Kevin Smith writes some dialogue for his good friend and Babble Brother.

In real time (as in when these movies were being made and discussed), Ralph and Kevin would talk about Ralph being in the various movies. Imagine my surprise when I finally watched them this year that Ralph's roles in Red State (no dialogue) and Tusk (little dialogue) were so small. No so with Yoga Hosers.

He's the main villain, Andronicus Arcane, a Nazi who put himself in cryogenic freeze only to be accidentally defrosted in 2016. In many glorious minutes, Ralph gets to do some of his best impressions. Arcane, a German, reveals his plan to the captured Colleens and LaPointe. In a bid to help them be more at ease (as if being handcuffed to a chair in a subterranean Canadian bunker wasn't bad enough), Arcane/Ralph does Al Pacino, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Now, I've never seen a live Hollywood Babble On or The Ralph Report (my review) live so I've never seen Ralph do these impressions. Now I have. So good. Visually, Ralph somehow makes his face look like these actors, especially Stallone. One of the best things about the entire movie, and the only part I've watched more than once.

The Verdict

I enjoyed watching Yoga Hosers even if I rolled my eyes at some of the moments, even if I checked my phone a la the Colleens, even if I caught up on Words With Friends during some parts. It was ...just okay. I can't imagine I'll be re-watching Yoga Hosers again.

As an independent writer, I am all for creating whatever type of art you like and then see if there are folks who like and enjoy it. Thus, I have no issue with this film being made. If that's what Smith wants to do and he can get all the folks involved to make it, so be it. Good on him.

But it comes across as not worthy of his talents.

I'll be honest: while I don't count Clerks among my favorite of Smith's films, that movie is better than Yoga Hosers. Clerks had a style, a vibe, something to say. Yoga Hosers, while being fun to watch, is kind of like a student film when the director gathers a bunch of friends and just puts something together. Dogma--which I don't love--is chock full of great Smith quotes and dialogue. Ditto for Tusk despite the premise, Heck, even Red State--which I actively dislike and will likely forever hold the mark as my least favorite Kevin Smith film--is a better-made movie than this.

Which brings me back to the question I posed at the top of this review. Yoga Hosers is definitely a movie you watch for the actors and performances and not for the plot. There's not much there. Heck, there's more in Tusk than here. This will likely be the "early film" in the dual careers of Lily-Rose Depp and Harley Quinn Smith.

And that's it for the Great Kevin Smith Movie Catch-Up for 2019. Next up for me is Jay and Silent Bob Reboot here in Houston on 30 October. Expect a review on 6 November.

In lieu of a review next Wednesday, I'll post my Top 12 list of all of Smith's films. We all know the last one, but what film will occupy the top spot. As of this writing, even I don't know (even though I have my Top 3 set).

I Finally Watched Tusk

Introduction
Clerks
Mallrats
Chasing Amy
Dogma
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
Jersey Girl
Clerks II
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
Cop Out
Red State

I'll freely admit I'm of two minds about this 2014 movie by Kevin Smith. One the one hand, it's a grotesque film with a truly horrendous outcome that leaves little in the way of hope. On the other, it's truly a Kevin Smith film.

A Return to the Smith of Old

I don't know much of the backstory of what happened to Smith the film director after completing Red State. In his book, Tough Shit, Smith comments that he didn't want to make Kevin Smith films anymore. Understandable considering the genre he helped to define--man children dealing with life--was, as of 2011, a full-blown sub-genre. A shame because he's so good at it.

Which makes the opening of Tusk a much appreciated to the sensibility of what put Smith on the map. It's indie, it's two actors--Justin Long  and Haley Joel Osment--talking and riffing and verbalizing Kevin Smith dialogue. After four movies of non-Smith-like characters reciting his words, it was a breath of fresh air.

That quickly turns sour.

Despite all the hallmarks of a Smith film--clever dialogue, characters who are podcasters, his daughter and Johnny Depp's daughter as a pair of clerks, a jingle from the Hollywood Babble On podcast, Ralph Garman actually speaking--Tusk gets seriously weird.

The Premise

Podcaster Wallace Bryton (Long) flies to Canada to interview "The Kill Bill Kid," a kid who posted a YouTube video of himself swinging a Japanese sword but inadvertently slices off his leg. Wallace intends to interview the kid, but discovers the young man killed himself to escape the constant bullying. Stuck without a story, Wallace sees a flyer on a barroom bathroom wall. He's intrigued as the author just wants to share his life's story.

Wallace heads out to Howard Howe's house...at night...because of course. He meets Howe, a wheelchair-bound older man played spectacularly by Michael Parks. Howe drugs Wallace and when the young man wakes up, he discovers his left leg has been amputated.

If only that were the worst thing to befall him. No, it gets worse. Far, far worse, especially when Howe reveals he's not at all confined  to the wheelchair.

The Power of Stories

Parks could read the phone book and I'd buy a copy and listen. His voice and nuance in seducing Wallace via stories is wonderful. Heck, I even noted Smith's own writing style to be quite good in these scenes, especially the swimming story that gets a younger Howe to the deserted island with a walrus. There's one line that specifically sticks with me:

"it's [the bottle Wallace is marveling at] just a bottle, but if you combine it with a story, it becomes a powerful talisman, a doorway to another time and place, and, perhaps, a drawbridge to history."

One can't help but be impressed by lines such as these that came from the mind that brought all those dick jokes early in Smith's career.

The Acting

Parks is wonderful, but so is Long. I mean, come on. He has to sell  the horror of the situation in which he finds himself. There's that moment you wait for from the moment you learn the premise--the reveal of Wallace in the walrus suit, made of human skin--that is friggin' shocking. Sure, your mind tells you that it's just a prop while another part of your mind starts to marvel at how well the grotesque thing looks, but it's Long's non-verbal bellows of revulsion that slice through you. At first, I couldn't tell if it was supposed to be his own skin, but I finally figured out Howe had prior victims. Shudder.

It's flat-out disturbing, even during this month of Halloween to see this. Howe is so utterly insane that he's gone all the way around to calmness. Heck, he's even calm when he shows up in a walrus suit of his own! Didn't see that coming. That Wallace-as-walrus kills Howe-as-walrus probably should have been something I predicted, but I didn't. I kept thinking that Wallace was merely drugged and that he wasn't permanently altered. I was wrong.

Excellent prop and costume, however.

The Film's Style

The Kevin Smith-ness of this film is over every frame. Unlike his last three, you can instantly pick up on the director's vision and style. It's what made the film watchable for me despite the story. Let's put it this way: had it not been a Smith film, there's no way I'd have seen this film.

But I fully appreciated how Smith structured his movie in the Quentin Tarantino style of non-linear storytelling. After Wallace is kidnapped, the scenes jump back to him and his girlfriend, Ally (Genesis Rodriguez), just talking about relationships and life and love. Little nuggets of backstory is revealed in these flashbacks, none quite as important as the last one. In that last flashback, Ally comments that crying is what separates humans from animals. Naturally, in the last scene, you see Wallace, still in his walrus suit, still nonverbal, crying. Why? Because he's forced to live this existence because Johnny Depp's character couldn't pull the trigger of his rifle and put Wallace out of his misery.

The Famous Guest Stars

In his podcasts of the time, I remember Smith talking about getting Depp on board. His daughter, Lily-Rose, was already cast alongside Smith's daughter, Harley Quinn Smith, as the girl clerks in the convenience store. Depp plays a private investigator (?) who knows about Howe and helps lead Ally and Wallace's podcast partner, Teddy (Osment) to Howe's house.

Depp is, well, Depp: entirely wrapped up in the character despite the movie surrounding him. He was pretty fun to watch, to be honest. There was one flashback in which Depp acted opposite Parks, and that was a fine scene.

The two young ladies didn't get a lot of screen time in this film, but they made the most of it. And I know the penultimate Smith movie to date, Yoga Hosiers, is next for me.

The Verdict

In my notes, the last thing I wrote was "Well, that was interesting, but at least it felt like a Kevin Smith film."  You have to hand it to Smith for doing this. Granted, had I voted back in 2013 for either #WalrusYes or #WalrusNo, I would have voted no. Did this movie really need to be made? Not really. What started as a discussion on a podcast emerged as the movie Tusk. What I appreciate is the indie spirit behind it all. "Why not?" is a mantra in which I believe, so in Smith's mind, why not make a movie about a man who transforms another man into a walrus. The execution of the entire project is spot on and can serve as an example to what indie film making (or any indie creative endeavor) can achieve.

But is Tusk a good film? Thankfully, we have Red State to occupy My Least Favorite Kevin Smith Film spot. I can't imagine it'll ever be displaced. But do I like Tusk over Dogma? Probably not. There are portions of Tusk I enjoy, but the grotesque element is...well, it isn't too much, it's just something I care not to see. It's a shrug. I'll watch Dogma over this any day, but I likely won't be watching either ever again.

Still, Tusk has some genuinely good moments. Parks is great, the daughters Smith and Depp are fun, and it was great seeing Osment again. The structure of the film is well done, and the dialogue and writing is really good. Smith knows his way around writing. I can't help but wonder if he'll ever write a novel. I'd certainly read it.

And with Kevin Smith "back," I'm looking forward to Yoga Hosiers.

I Finally Watched Red State

Introduction
Clerks
Mallrats
Chasing Amy
Dogma
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
Jersey Girl
Clerks II
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
Cop Out


Congratulations, Dogma! You are no longer my least favorite Kevin Smith film. A new champion has arrived.

As is my policy, I don't watch the trailers for this Kevin Smith watch-a-thon before I view the film. I just let the movie speak.

What the hell did this movie say? It was garbled. Look, movies don't always have to say something or mean something. They can be mere diversions. But with Red State, I couldn't make out anything.

What is this movie trying to be? A horror story? An action story? A thriller? An indictment of the botched Waco stand-off from 1993? Something else? Did not 'get it.'

The Premise

Three horny teenagers (alright, we're starting off on a Smith trope) find a lady online who promises to have sex with them. All they have to do is drive out to a lonely country road to the trailer home where she lives. Well, what could possibly go wrong?

Plenty.

The boys are kidnapped by Abin Cooper (Michael Parks), a preacher who leads a small congregation very much like the combination of Waco's Branch Davidians and the Westboro Baptist Church.

Now, as much as I dislike this film, Michael Parks is brilliant. His performance as Cooper is the bright spot in this otherwise dark film. When we first see him, he delivers a sermon/monologue lasting a good chunk of screen time. His cadence and voice are mesmerizing, and you could only watch this scene and you'd think this movie was good.

Well, there's more movie.

In that scene, we get our first glimpse of Ralph Garman in a Smith movie. I am a member of the Garmy and listen to The Ralph Report every weekday. I know he's a talented voice actor and I couldn't wait to hear what kind of voice Garman was going to bring to this picture.

Like Luke Skywalker in The Force Awakens, Garman spoke not a word before he was killed.

Really? Nothing? Not even some sort of guttural mumbling as he chased one of the escaping teenagers.

Shooting. Lots and Lots of Shooting

Man, I have already spent more time talking about this film than I expected. Stuff happens and people shoot at each other. Lots of death. Nothing wrong with shooting. I've loved lots of films with it. But a Kevin Smith film?

Halfway (earlier, actually) I forgot I was watching a Kevin Smith film, so different was Red State than everything that came before. As a creative writer, I go in any direction my imagination goes.

Again, like I wrote with Dogma, I'm perfectly fine with Smith trying something new and different.

But it doesn't mean I have to like it.

The Verdict.

I don't like Red State. For me, Dogma is a benign ignorance. The movie has some good moments, contained some trademark Smithisms, starred Alan Rickman, but mostly it's a one-and-done viewing and I give it rarely a passing thought. With Red State, I actively dislike it. Heck, I didn't even bother going to the DVD and watching the behind-the-scenes material. I ejected the DVD, put it back in its case, and put it on top of the To-Sell stack for a future Half Price Books run.

Now, as to Parks himself, I know he is in the next film on the list, Tusk. So, whatever interesting things that film has to offer, it at least has Michael Parks, easily the best thing about Red State.